


Breakable

by orphan_account



Category: Death Note
Genre: Blades, Blindfolds, Blood, Crying, F/M, Interrogation, Knives, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:10:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The information is there in her mind and Mello is getting desperate which, in turn, calls for desperate measures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breakable

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Kink_Bingo square 'Blades', and also inspired by conversations had with a friend. Warning for torture, blood and trauma.

Objectively, he reasons, it’s not really one of the worst things he’s ever done. Why is she less deserving of this than a random scumbag who’s in debt and has taken unsolicited cuts of money for himself? If she’s Kira or working with Kira, then she’s done more damage than anyone he’s met since joining the Mafia. 

Mello has never liked hurting women, though, and for all Misa Amane might be responsible for, she’s so small and fragile. She’s a model or an actress, he knows and they’re not exactly known for their physical prowess.

He’s approaching this as a successor of L and not as part of the Mafia. That part of his life is done for the moment. Mello has never really considered himself to be one of the big, stupid thugs he had to work with, and, after a fashion, it became to be not too difficult to wrangle personal situations to fit his own boundaries.

But mass murderer she could very well be, and was more than likely involved in the death of L. That helps to clear some of the apprehension, and then Mello realises that she’s not just a little pathetic. Her narrow, quivering thighs above the lace of her stockings and the tears streaming down her reddening face and she’s babbling incoherently. He knows that she holds in her mind the knowledge of the death of L and that she’s content with it. He knows that she probably celebrated his death, and that she was pleased that his brilliant mind was wiped out, completely.

He grips the hilt of the knife that he he’s holding, running his thumb gently across the blade. It would be a threatening movement if she wasn’t blindfolded, he thinks. He clings to what sits hotly behind that blindfold and lets his blood bubble. With that, he pulls her forward by the neckline of her dress and slices open the front from the waistline up to between her breasts. Carefully, because he wants to go as long as he can before he cuts her.

She whimpers as the bodice of her dress falls open and he snarls.  
“All you have to do, Misa Amane, is tell me what you know,” is what he says, then.

She bites her lip and shakes her head. “Either you’re going to hurt Misa or you’re not,” she says. 

Ordinarily, he’d supress annoyance at the sound of the high-pitched squeal of her voice. Nothing can make him understand why that noise would be considered attractive.

This time, he lets it irritate him, lets it allow him to be able to pull the knife through the tight seam of the waistband so that her dress falls away. She seems to cringe with her entire body, pushing back into the wall.

“You were always going to do that,” she says.

He can’t really look at her; she’s so much smaller than him and is wearing nothing but flimsy black underwear. He twists the knife in his fingers and rubs his thumb along the hilt, this time. 

“I still won’t,” he says, his voice low and even. “If you’ll just tell me what I need to know.”

He focuses on where her eyes were, behind the blindfold. It’s there for a very good reason, but he’s glad that he can’t see them wide and pleading and wet with tears. He narrows his own eyes and keeps them on her reddening cheeks. It’s not much better.

“Amane,” he says, both a warning and a plea.

She says nothing. Mello drops to crouch between her legs, which were parted, slightly, and looks up at her face. He is doing his best to ignore the trace of her sex underneath her lacy underwear and her breasts rising and falling with her frantic breathing. Taking any notice at all would bring him too close to the type of boundary that he doesn’t want to cross. He watches her face and she’s still whimpering and crying. He reminds himself that she doesn’t care what she does. That she has little empathy.

He lays the flat of the knife against the skin of her thigh. Her breath hitches and she gasps at the sensation, but the blade is held too gently against her to do any damage, even if she jerks in surprise.

“This is your last chance,” he says, simply. “Come on…spill and I won’t do anything.”

He’s surprised she’s not dead yet. That Kira hasn’t silenced her before he can make her talk. He stares at her trembling thigh underneath his blade and he anticipates her going into death throes at any moment. All that happens is that she bites her lip and hurriedly shakes her head.

Not a squeak erupts and it’s in near silence that Mello makes the first cut. It’s on her upper thigh, close to her hip, that he makes it. He chooses, after all, to steer clear of the sensitive skin on her inside leg. Should she refuse to speak for too long, then he can make the cuts increasingly painful.

Misa cries out and jerks, although Mello suspects that it’s shock rather than pain at this stage. Her body is taut and he wonders, tentatively, if this is all it takes.

“Well?” he asks.

There’s no response, and he resigns himself to the idea that she’s holding out and can take more. He glances at the cut he’s made; the blood is welling up in beads that threaten to burst and spill, but don’t, yet.

She settles, her breathing slowing and he thinks that it’s nowhere near as cruel as it could be. He might not have to take things that far, after all.

He places the next cut on her upper arm creating a strange kind of asymmetry. The limb spasms and her knuckles clench and whiten. She doesn’t cry out this time, and the blood runs in a narrow stream down towards her elbow.

He’s still not done much damage, and Misa could still give in. However, the fact that her reaction is already more subdued suggests that he’s going to have to step up his game, somewhat. So far, the blade has had to sink into dense skin that resists, slightly, with less pain and lighter bloodflow. The cuts are shallow at the moment, too, even if Mello draws the knife across a little slower than quickly.

Her bra strap begins to hang off her shoulder, and he considers pushing it back up. But anything gentle will throw the menace off, and it would need to be much, much worse to make up for it. Amane needs to be pushed towards confession without making anything too complicated.

Eventually, though, he might have to sweeten the deal for her. Interjecting cruelty with kindness really fucks with a hostage’s mind, after all. But, as much as he feels wretched about slicing Misa up, he’s not sure that he can bring himself to be nice to her. Something in him revolts at the idea of being pleasant to Kira.

Still, the falling of the strap exposes more of the curve of her breast, which is rising and falling with her rapid breathing, and beading with sweat. She’s unprotected like that, and Mello has to concentrate hard not to let that fly in the face of what he has to do.

When he was younger, perhaps he thought he’d enjoy such a situation. In the flood of adolescent anger that led him to storm from Wammy’s House after L’s death, he would have relished the chance to take a knife to anyone who was even vaguely involved.

Time on the streets and in the mafia had enforced what he wants to be and what he doesn’t want to be, even if it was compromised by what he has to be. 

Still, it seems better to cling to that vigour that he once had. The blood that she’s already shed is drying, and that bleeding from the cut on her leg has started to run down to the top of her stocking.

“Amane, tell me about Light,” he says. The woman will talk about her boyfriend, surely. If he’s lucky, there will be something there that he can pick at.

“Light…” she says, her voice thin and wheedling. Mello flattens the blade against his gloved palm and listens, focusing on the space between her breasts. It’s better than looking at her red cheeks, this time, and he is depending on whatever she says angering him to the point where it doesn’t matter. He can almost see the flutter of her heart beat and he averts his gaze downwards to her stomach.

“I love Light,” she says, after a pause. She’s choosing her words, carefully. He lifts his blade and presses it against the dip of her waist. Her skin seems to yield under the flat of his knife just enough to suggest how soft it is. Mello swallows. Gloves serve, a little, to remove him from contact. The last thing he needs, now, is the touch of skin on skin.

She whimpers, again, which segues into speech. “He’s the most wonderful man…” she says. “He’ll kill you.”

Mello grits his teeth and shifts the knife so that the point presses against her. Not hard, but she takes a sharp intake of breath and he notices the muscles of her stomach undulate just a little at the contact. “He’ll kill me?” he repeats. “Are you giving in that easily?”

He imagines Yagami as the killer that he must be, and Amane being complicit in everything. Gleefully complicit. He uses that to help himself want to sink the knife into her, for her skin to split like the surface of butter. His hand is steadier than his mind, however, and he doesn’t sink the blade in and instead moves the knife onto its side. He’s already pricked her skin enough to break the surface just about, and all he has to do now is make a sidewards cut. He still, doesn’t yet, though - not quite.

“No, no,” she says, “He’ll defend his Misa. As good boyfriends do. Light is a good boyfriend for Misa.” She sounds like she’s reciting something going around her head and Mello grips the handle of his knife and thinks that it’ll just take a little more and a confession for herself or Light Yagami or both will spill forth.

“He’s better than you,” she continues. Mello feels the twinge of annoyance at that very phrase, but it does not anger him as much as it might have done, because Mello is the man pressing a knife to her stomach and he has learnt to be lucid enough to understand the nuances of things like that.

Still, Kira might actually be no worse than the crime boss Mello, but he was never better than L. Mello holds onto that and remembers that that’s what he needs to establish. One swift movement and there’s a cut across her abdomen. She lets out a scream, this time, and arches her back, her ribcage pushing against her skin. The cut is still shallow, but the thinner skin gives way to blood more easily, and it begins to drip down her smooth stomach towards the dip of her groin. The trickle is small and will do her no damage, yet. 

Mello’s tension is almost palpable, and he feels like he can pull her forward by her very nerve endings. As she breathes, rapidly, he moves the knife upwards, tracing the tip up between her breasts and along her collar bone until it rests in the crook of her neck. She shifts underneath it and trembles.

“Tell me how he’s better than me,” he says, quietly. 

He watches her lips part as she inhales sharply, and presses the knife a little firmer against her neck. “He’s…” she begins and she’s calculating. Mello moves a little closer to her, twisting his fingers in the webbing of her stockings, grazing his leather-covered fingertips on her thigh. Instinctively, she starts pulling her legs together. “He’s a gentleman.”

Mello feels something inside him twist. There were things that he’d never do to anyone. Even if his younger self would have relished this situation, experiences in the interim would have killed that. Mello is sure that he’d never have really done that back then if given the chance. Not really.

“…And?” he says. “That doesn’t help me, so by extension, it doesn’t help you, either.”

He pulls on her stocking, just a little, tugging the elastic down, a little.

“He’s smart,” she says, before pausing, and Mello pauses one hard on her thigh and the other holding the knife to her throat. “Misa-Misa loves her boyfriend and he takes her on lots of dates whenever he comes back from his busy job. Misa-Misa should be on a date with him right now.”

It seems, bizarrely, like she’s giving a peppy interview answer, and Mello finds himself irritated by how inappropriate it really is. That’s good, because it helps and he moves the hand on her thigh carefully and hooks a finger underneath the bridge at the front of her bra. Keeping the knife still against her throat, he pulls her forward, aware of the soft, pliable skin of her breasts on either side of his finger, even with the glove he’s wearing. She whimpers and tries to tilt her head back away from him.

“You’re not in some interview for some stupid magazine,” he says, beginning to lower the knife back down over her clavicle and her sternum, “And you’re certainly not on a date, now.”

He replaces his finger with the blade, sharp side up, allowing the point to press back into her skin. He is still as he waits for her response. He can feel the shaky vibrations of her fevered breathing through the knife, though, and he needs to steady his own breathing.

“People like you don’t go on dates,” she said. “Who loves a criminal?”

Mello doesn’t care about the statement as it relates to him, but it supports her being Kira nonetheless without actually being truly indicative of it. That sort of naiveté scratches at Mello’s nerves in any case. She is too old to be thinking like that.

“You, for a start,” he bites. “Am I right?”

She frowns and he pulls at the bow at the front of her bra a little. “Light is not a criminal,” she murmurs, quietly, but resolutely. She is quiet, now, but the ridiculous tone of such childishness coming from an adult woman claws at Mello’s mind.

She seems calmer now, her cheeks losing their tear stained redness and Mello stares at the knife fit snugly underneath her bra. Up until this point, Misa has been just about decent, left in her underwear. Mello’s intention in cutting away any other item of clothing would be to degrade her, and he’s not fond of that notion but it really seems like it might be the only thing to make her talk. The cuts on her upper arm and thigh are congealing, and the one on her stomach has stopped bleeding, although he’s supposing they all still sting just enough.

Still, he fills his mind with the image of her sickly sweet and giggling over the prone and thus humiliated body of L. It’s overblown, but it’s enough to allow him to force the blade through the tight band of material over her sternum. The material slopes aside, slowly exposing her breasts.

She wails and instinctively tries to move her arms to cover herself, although her wrists are bound. Mello has no intention of being lecherous and he isn’t moved by the sight of her breasts, and neither does he let himself think about whether he would be, otherwise.

He remains quiet and holds the knife in his hands and does not touch her. Instead, he watches her as she begins to cry, again. Mello knows that his presence, now, is enough to keep her intimidated. The threat hangs in the air and he keeps his eyes on her, although it doesn’t matter where, anymore.

“Mr Kidnapper…” she says, and her voice is trembling, but she is pulling out the saccharine idol trill and masking it over the top. “…Mr Kidnapper…it doesn’t have to be like this.”

Mello tilts his head in question, even though she can’t see him. He shifts closer to her, again, letting his leather creak. She flinches when he puts the flat of the blade against her throat, once more. This time, he presses it firmer into her skin.

“What can it be like, then, Misa-Misa?” he says, hissing her stage name.

He carefully pulls the knife down towards her sternum as he watches her gather her response, and he almost presses it hard enough to draw blood, but not quite.

“I can…I can… wear different outfits for you,” she whimpers, and Mello feels hollow, but he continues to trace the knife down and softens the tension of his hold to follow the curve of her breast. He doesn’t cut her. “I can…kiss you on the cheek.”

Mello frowns and says nothing. He angles the knife, running the tip gently from the underside of her breast to her nipple. She squirms a little, but it’s not enough that he would cut her, yet. Now is really not the time to be feeling sorry for her, though.

“I don’t want you to dress up for me,” he says, quietly. “I want you to tell me about Kira. This won’t stop until you do, although it will stop when you do.”

He presses the point of the knife against the yielding skin of the fullest part of her breast, and she squeals, although he’s still not pressing hard enough to cut.

“What you should do,” he says, his voice still level, still quiet, “is tell me what you think about about him…or her.”

“Kira…he…Misa has no time for things like that,” she says, curtly. “Misa is a busy, happy model with a wonderful boyfriend.”

Mello slants the knife, his hand steady, and the edge of the blade sinks into the supple flesh, at a shallow depth, but still deep enough to draw blood. It’s so soft, the knife threatens to plunge deeper and Mello has to steady his hand to stop it. She near screams, this time, and he imagines her wide eyes beneath her blindfold as she thrashes just a little. He holds her still by the shoulder.

“About. Kira,” he states, staring at the newest incision. It’s cruelly red against her pale skin, particularly in that vulnerable space, and he focuses on what sort of thing goes on in her head, and tells himself that she’s lucky that he didn’t sink the knife in until it was wedged between her ribs. She’d splutter the truth, then, but he wanted to give her the chance for things not to reach that.

He taps the side of her face and gently traces the dip of her waist with the blunt edge of the knife. She squirms and winces. Blood is trickling from the cut on her breast, slowly over the delicate curve and underneath.

“Kira killed my parent’s killer,” she said, quickly, but steadily. “He killed my parent’s killer and that’s why Misa likes Kira. There’s no crime in liking him.”

Mello has to admit that it makes a sad sort of sense. Something in the back of his mind tells him that if he tried, he could sympathise. Something else, something urged and trained and not quite innate, tells him that if he must sympathise, then he should at least use the sympathy.

“Maybe not,” he says. “But I think there’s a little more, here, than just liking him.”

He holds the knife in his gloved hands, running the edge up his thumb, twisting the hilt in his other hand. Looking at her is almost worse than touching her; she’s almost naked and she seems frail, her skin smeared with red, and he just about stops himself from wondering if it would be okay to stop the whole thing now and treat the cuts he’s made, before wrapping her up.

“I’ll give you one more chance,” he says. “I’ll give you one more chance to tell me anything.”

“I’ve told you,” she says. “There’s nothing else to say.”

Mello finds himself twitching in irritation; he doesn’t want this to do on for too long. Grasping her leg, he makes a sudden cut on her inner thigh, centimetres away from her groin. Again, it’s soft and the combination of pain and shock makes Misa cry out, again. 

“You wouldn’t understand,” she says. “It’s…it’s different that I love Kira for that, because I was good. I am good. I didn’t deserve it. Everybody Kira has killed deserved it.”

It’s not a confession, but it fires Mello’s blood into anger and, in a swift movement, he’s there pressed close to her, tilting her head up towards him. Looking down, he sees how closely she’s constrained against him, and he knows that if he wasn’t fully dressed, he would be able to feel her bloodied skin as she trembles against him. Moments ago, it was too intimate for him to have liked, but now all he can do was press the point of the blade underneath her chin. If he thrust it upwards, it would go straight up into her skull.

“You’re a silly little girl,” he says, and he’s sure he sees her smile. He wants to run off a spiel about how the world does not owe her for her own slice of tragedy, to list all of the reasons why he hates her, but he forces himself to stay tightly coiled. “You’re probably not smart enough to be Kira, anyway.”

He knows she’s not the sort of person to be upset by that, but it’s more out of spite. But now she’s said what she said, he feels less inclined to help her.

\-------------------  
Later, Mello sits in front of the splintering mantelpiece in the room he’s set aside as his. The smell of must and the bare stone walls are a welcome change from the basement where he’d interrogated Misa. She didn’t say much that was useful and there came a point where it was apparent that she wouldn’t be saying anything, at all. Whether she’s Kira or not (even if the chance of her not being Kira is neglible), she was certainly resolute, and it made sense to take a break to consider his next move.

He stares up at the statue sitting in the centre of the mantelpiece below the cross he’d hung. The colours are faded and dull, but Mello has managed to keep the statue from becoming chipped. It always seems odd to everyone around him, even Matt- but Mello likes the consistence of it. It isn’t so much religious fervour that helps him keep the faith, but the fact that it never changes. It’s the same now as it had been when his mother had taught him the Lord’s Prayer.

Mello removes his jacket and keeps his eyes on the worn face of the statue above him. Standing up, he undresses completely, apathetic as he feels the cool air on his skin. Run-down buildings are always a little cold. Mello has never minded it. It serves a purpose, almost, particularly at certain points, where he feels like he wants to be open and exposed. This is pretty much the only time when he would be, since he hates being vulnerable so much, but the lord can see all that he’s done, anyway, and all he has to do, now, is ask for forgiveness.


End file.
